Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Question: I\'m sure I remember hearing that Brutal Truth were/are in the Guiness Book of Records for the shortest promo video or something similar.Is this true, and are any more Earache artists featured in the pages? From: Evil__Jeff@Hotmail.com

Answer: Earache has had two bands featured in the famous book of world records.Napalm Death's 7 inch single from 1989 was the worlds shortest single- clocking in a 1.5 seconds.In recent years we had Brutal truth included in the book for the record of worlds shortest pop promo video clip.For Collateral Damage clip, clocking in at 2 seconds.Beat that!

Question: Hello, my name is Sean Howells. I am management for SB promotions and am contacting you as i feel that i have two of my bands ready for singning. Please forgive me for being short but i shall get straight to the point.

If you could PLEASE check out my top 2 bands webpages which has demo\'s on both and contact me if you have any interest. If you have no interest, some hints and tips for them, feedback would be VERY appreciated. The bands are named Fatal Taunt and FUBAR. Their site addresses are :

http://www.fataltaunt.com

http://www.wearefubar.com

Thank you for your time and effort in reading this. If for any reason you would like to contact me my details are :

Sean Howells SB promotions managementtel : 07983548448

Hope to hear from you soon. From: sbpromotions@ntlworld.com

Answer: hi Sean, well you are certainly in the right place as it seems Wales is a hot-bed of talent at the moment- has been for years actually..dunno whats in the water, but there seems to be a production line of bands coming thru- and many labels' A&R activity is centred on South Wales, thats a fact.The link you sent for FUBAR didnt work- D'oh! you fell at the first hurdle dood! BUT- i searched around and found them on myspace instead- and i'm glad i did, i enjoyed their music more than Fatal Taunt to be honest.We have no interest to sign either band, because they both are not what we are signing, and seem to have no ready made scene to slot into..but the singer of FUBAR has a good voice and thier songs are stronger than most new bands...the drummer of Fatal lets them down imho..its kinda out of time in places which rules them out right away.I thought it was cool that the FUBAR singer wears a cardiff city football team shirt- an individual touch -as many rock bands do not ever wear such team clothes, to not alienate fans from other cities...so, I wish you the best with them.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Question: Digby-why are you thanked on certain sabbat albums, but earache never signed the band did you help set them up with gigs or somthing when they first started or are you just friends with them. Also did you ever consider signing them when they were first around considering they were one of the bigger bands from nottingham at the time. Also i was talking to a staff member at a games workshop store and they said that GW at one point tried to set up a label to release \"gaming music\" with earache\'s help is this true? From:

Answer;I guess it does seem a little odd that Earache did'nt sign one of Nottingham's leading Metal bands in the late 80's era.The reasons are twofold really- 1) I saw them play really early on as Hydra at a pub in Nottingham but the spandex pants they wore were cringeworthy-in truth, my head was more into extreme hardcore punk bands who sang about political lyrics, such as Napalm Death & Heresy at that time plus 2) I had'nt actually got my label set up properly before Sabbat broke through- i had barely released 2 or maybe 3 records, it was still a bedroom operation.Seemingly,In the course of a few weeks,Sabbat went from budding local hopefuls to Kerrang cover stars-due to the founding editor of kerrang- Geoff Barton- taking an immediate liking to their unique style.A lucky break which propelled them to a deal with the well-established Noise records in Germany.I dont remember them thanking me on any albums, but Nottingham has always had a small tight scene, so our paths used to cross a bit, espcecially as members of Earache band Lawnmower Deth were friendly with Sabbat, coming from the same North Nottingham villages.What was weird was that much later, when Return To The Sabbat formed, in 2001 or so, Earache declined to sign them.

As for Games Workshop- we did work with them in 1989 licensing the cover art for our Bolt Thrower album.This was prompted by the band themselves, because their name is taken from a GW game, personally I didnt know what Games Workshop was-it was a blast to work with such a hive of creative talent-GW were a local small independent fantasy wargaming firm at the time, not the corporate behemoth they are nowadays, so such a deal was easy to do.My recollection is that Bolt Throwers album actually sold quite well thru the GW stores, which prompted the marketing guy there to try their hand at doing a GW themed record label, with the first and i believe only signing of hard rockers D-Rok, who had a short lived career.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Question: In signing a new band, if the task were ever to strike you, what typically would you look for?Recording skill? Musicianship? An active band who tours regularily? Please respond and feel free to add any other qualities or guidelines that you would wish for. Thank you.Yours Truly,

ORB DECAY.

Answer: Man, we get asked this question maybe 5 times per day, its all you guys think about!!..if I wrote a book called "How to get your band signed to a Record label" it would be a bestseller, I think.Having signed maybe 100+ bands in the extreme metal genre its hard to analyse what factors got them signed, to pass on the info to you, but i'll try...y'know, In this era of myspace and social networking sites and mp3 downloads its kinda arguable that bands dont actually need to be signed to a label anymore.The ultimate aim is to gain fans- which if you do it well enough, will make the labels come running to you.

Its a given that your band must be tight, proficient musicians, team players, hard working-and you must tour- bedroom bands are destined for obscurity. What bands often dont realise is what the standard of the competition is like- its a high level out there, the competition to be signed is intense..Earache is literally bombarded with hopeful up n coming bands myspace links, demos, cds every day of the week- we worked out we maybe get 4000 approaches a year (10 a day)- and sign approx 2-3-4 bands from that, so we ae saying "no" most all the time.Most hopefuls are decent bands, but a lot are making the mistake of sending us the first recordings they've done.No band is killer within 3 months of picking up instruments..

Many labels of some long standing are very picky indeed- Earache amongst them- this is a fact many bands dont appreciate-the A&R people at labels are paid to have their fingers on the pulse of whats new and happening in the rock/metal scene, but they are incredibly sheep like, at the same time- so it helps a lot if your band is part of a current trend, or more likely the next upcoming trend.Do your homework about the labels too...if you read that a label is signing bands which are in your particular style, then approach them, rather than labels who are working other stuff.Finally- even when you do get signed..labels still need you to work even harder than before..as the expectation level ' bar' is raised for 'signed acts'.

last bit of advice i can give is- send a 6-pack of beers in the package with your demo- i'm not kidding! it will guarantee your band a comprehensive listen at the label,plus it will show your impeccable skill in marketing/promotion of your band, which is highly prized.

Question: Hi remember reading an article about a year ago, about an Earache records video game. It was gonna be for ps2 and pc i think. I remember seeing development pictures. What happened to that? From: venturesagogo@yahoo.com

Answer: yes its finally, finally OUT..in UK and across some European territories.USA is still in the works for later in the year. After a slow start ( i guess after a year and a half of talking about it, the extra delays caused some fans to doubt it was actually real) its starting to sell well in the second week, its even in the amazon.co.uk chart for PS2 Games.The developers are currently talking to us about a Nintendo Wii version later in the year and a much more gory 18+ blood n guts version is due out in July too.Some discussions are taking place about adding Guitar Hero support into these later versions.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Question: Hi,I need an address(not web)to send you my band s promo-album with a biography an a letter from me to give you all the infos,please dont ignore this,the album is really good,i think you should listen it,give us a way out from the stupids we got around,thank you all anyway,bye From: fran.martino@hotmail.it

Answer: sure-we do accept demos on CD- but a myspace link sent using our form on the contacts page is better. send CD to